As learning professionals, we already know that COVID-19 has had a profound effect on the viability of physical classrooms and face-to-face courses. A Google Trends search for “virtual classroom” shows a huge rise in interest since the pandemic made headlines in early 2020. Simply put, if you’re working in learning and development today and you haven’t yet invested in the skills for virtual classroom design and facilitation, you’re in danger of truly being left behind.

In the webinar "From Bookcase To Cyberspace", Michelle Parish, Head of the Learning and Performance Institute Virtual Academy, explores the issues and the opportunities presented by the virtual learning world by answering the key questions:

• How to adapt face-to-face courses to the online environment?
• How to make online courses more interactive?
• How to use online training platforms in a professional manner?

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Effective training doesn't stop after the initial training event. Reinforcement of the acquired knowledge and skills should be an integral part of any training program. This webinar aims to answer the following questions:

• Why is post-training support so beneficial for both trainers and learners?
• How to create a post-training support plan?
• How should trainers adapt it for different contexts? 

Caroline Mwazi, an IFC-certified master trainer, and IFC-LPI TPMA certified trainer and assessor, will share the wisdom of following up with learners after the training.

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The webinar "Considerations for Moving the Classroom Online" is based on the self-paced online learning experience developed to help learners make best decisions when moving their training into a virtual space. During the webinar, Mandy Grant, course developer and IFC-certified master trainer:

• Highlights advantages and disadvantages of converting classroom-based training into a virtual environment
• Compares and contrasts the different online learning options, including live online learning, self-study online learning, and blended learning
• Introduces a needs analysis tool (available in English and French) to help determine the best online delivery method for the circumstances
• Suggests questions to ask before converting the training and
• Explores logistical considerations, including learning managements systems and developing a business case

Download the webinar highlights in English and French.

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Gender equality is not only a social and moral imperative, but also an economic necessity, especially in emerging markets. Research by the McKinsey Global Institute suggests that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP in 2025 if every country matched the fastest progress made within its region toward gender parity. 

And yet, women continue to face socio-economic, legal, personal, and safety barriers that hamper their ability to do business, access finance, advance in their career, and in general contribute meaningfully to countries’ economic growth. Empowering women is a significant part of our global agenda, and training professionals can play a big role in it. 

During the webinar, Margaret Jackson builds the case for gender considerations in training programs and discusses:

• BEFORE: How can facilitators encourage women to attend training programs?  
• DURING: What can facilitators do to make women comfortable during training sessions? 
• AFTER: How can facilitators encourage women to continue learning? 

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In today’s world, the ability to recast classroom courses for online learning platforms is critical but challenging. Training designers must work with materials—particularly slides—developed by content experts with no experience in online training. Content experts who have traditionally worked with classroom audiences bring a degree of resistance to meeting requirements for online learning. The webinar "How to collaborate with content experts when converting classroom-based training into online" will enable training designers to successfully collaborate with content experts. 

By the end of the webinar, participants will be able to: 

• Understand challenges that training professionals encounter when designing materials for online learning. If we foresee challenges, we are better prepared to overcome them. 
• Identify common errors when converting classroom training for online learning. Learn from the mistakes of others. 
• Learn how to work productively with subject matter experts. Follow a simple four-step plan to collaborate effectively. 

The webinar is delivered by Elena Avery, GLC Master Trainer, together with special guests, Haseeb Ahmed and Graeme Harris.

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In the webinar ‘What Makes Coaching Work?’ Sandra Ihenacho and Adaora Ayoade explore how coaching can be used as a tool to elevate performance, productivity, and efficacy. Ingrained beliefs that coaching is a time-consuming process with a low return on investment often make organizations resistant to invest in coaching programs. As the speakers dispel some of these beliefs, they also examine the crucial elements of the coaching process that ensure that the coaching relationship is impactful and highly successful.

By the end of the webinar, participants learn how to: 

• Engage effectively with coaches to maximize the benefits of the coaching relationship 
• Elevate their performance through the coaching process.

The webinar is delivered by Sandra Ihenacho, GLC Master Trainer, together with the special guest Adaora Ayoade.

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In the webinar ‘Staying Profitable: Strategies for Training Professionals’, Adeola Babatunde explores various learning formats as well as online platforms that training professionals can leverage to market their own business offerings. 

By the end of the webinar, participants will: 

• Discover unconventional strategies to better market themselves 
• Learn about new opportunities to expand their business 
• Explore out-of-the-box methods to grow their client base 

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Training programs—if tailored appropriately—can ensure that the MSMEs acquire high-quality, vital job skills. To enhance the impact of their training programs, training professionals need to be able to accurately identify an audience’s training needs and effectively deliver a customized training program that is best suited to meet those needs.

In this webinar ‘Tailor-made Training for MSMEs’ conducted by Esther Macharia, participants learn to go beyond generic training modules and deliver high-impact, tailor-made training programs. They learn to:

• Analyze the training needs of MSME customers
• Prepare and design customized training solutions for MSMEs
• Deliver high-impact training programs for MSMEs

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In the webinar "MIXing It Up: Blending Learning  Options for the Online Classroom", Mandy Grant, IFC master trainer in designing learning experiences, walks participants through blending their mix of virtual learning options to create a rich, interactive course that helps the learners master and apply the topic, with the flexibility for self-study and the human connection of live online learning.

Learn to convert your classroom-based course by MIXing It Up:

• M: Master the Options
• I: Invent the Recipe
• X: eXecute the Mix

By the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:

• Understand the Mixing options for blending virtual learning
• List some considerations for Inventing the right mix for the need
• Follow tips for eXecuting the mix by setting up the facilitator and participants for success

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In the webinar ‘Partnering with Clients’, Caroline Mwazi, IFC certified master trainer and IFC-LPI trainer and assessor, talks about proven strategies that training professionals can leverage to build strong partnerships with their clients. Integral to GLC’s training lifecycle, ‘Partnering with Clients’ shows participants how to build credibility with clients, set clear expectations, deliver measurable results, and develop lasting client relationships. 

Through the webinar, training professionals learn how to align their approaches with their clients’ strategic objectives and be intentional about how they collaborate with clients for maximum impact.   

By the end of the webinar, participants learn how to: 

• Identify key challenges that emerge when partnering with clients  
• Develop robust strategies to build strong and long-term client relationships 
• Align learning objectives and evaluation methods with a clients’ performance needs and business objectives

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In the webinar ‘Creating the 24/7 Classroom’, Karen Feeley provides an overview of self-study (asynchronous) learning and gives examples of the different types of asynchronous training delivery methods. In this webinar, participants learn about steps they can take at each stage of the training lifecycle when creating or converting courses into asynchronous online training.

By the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:

• List different forms of asynchronous training and choose a format that best suits their clients’ needs
• Identify what actions they need to take when creating or converting courses into asynchronous online training
• Generate ideas for making asynchronous training effective and engaging

The webinar is based on the self-paced course 'Creating the 24/7 Classroom'.

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In this webinar, Fatma Elmaawy will share ideas and tried-and-tested strategies that will help training professionals enhance their client base and ensure organic, long-term, and sustainable business growth without marketing gimmicks.

Whether you’re an individual training professional or part of a larger organization, this webinar will give you easy-to-use tools for your business development. 

By the end of the webinar, you will be able to: 

• Describe at least three techniques of business growth 
• List strategies to building a stronger foundation for your business  
• Apply alternative approaches to marketing your business  

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In the webinar ‘Leading with a Coaching Mindset,’ Adaora Ayoade explores how coaching guides and empowers individuals and teams to reflect on their potential and performance. She then assists them to implement their learning within a given context, such as a workplace or personal life, thereby taking performance to the next level.

Adaora is joined by Mojisola Olubummo, the chief human resource officer at Lagoon Hospitals, Lagos, to look at how she has leveraged coaching to lead and sustain commitment and loyalty, improve delivery, and increase levels of innovation.

By the end of the webinar, participants learn how to: 

• Become an enabler of continuous development, and as a result, create fundamental shifts and transformations; and
• Unlock sources of creativity and productivity and think through issues more systematically.

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Budgeting and cash flow management are fundamental for any organization that is set to keep growing and creating value. Training organizations that can effectively forecast their cash flow and budget are much better equipped to deal rapidly with any unexpected hiccups than organizations that fail to plan ahead. 

In this webinar, Jonathan Ikeolumba, IFC-LPI TPMA trainer, will:

• Help trainers understand their key revenue streams and sources of expenses.
• Enable training professionals to understand the key considerations when preparing a budget.
• Provide more clarity around considerations when forecasting and managing cash flows.
• Equip trainers with the knowledge that will help them deal with business uncertainties through proper budgeting and cash flow management.

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As a training professional, how do you stay on top of the deluge of information related to your job and professional development? How do you make sense of this information, apply it to achieve your goals, and share it with others?

Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a process of gathering, organizing, saving, and using the knowledge that supports one’s work activities. PKM routines vary from person to person, yet all share a commitment to ongoing information gathering, sense-making, and sharing that not only fuel professional development but can foster organizational growth and economic competitiveness.

This webinar empowers training professionals, consultants, and executives with practical tools to enhance personal and corporate knowledge management praxis. Specifically, during this webinar, participants:

• Evaluate the effectiveness of their current learning practices and tools.
• Improve their personal learning habits and organizational learning strategies.
• Minimize the loss of institutional memory and the reduction of organizational performance when a key staff member leaves the organization.
• Increase their economic performance and team productivity through effective knowledge management strategies and tools.

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As the pandemic catalyzed a paradigm shift from in-person to virtual learning, issues faced by training professionals motivated many to develop and utilize virtual engagement tools and practices to optimize learning. These tools created opportunities for training professionals to design more interactive and engaging training activities, reach diverse audiences, and even tap into new markets.

In this webinar, Ammara Latif Sheikh, trainer and business consultant, talks about:

• Visual design tools as alternatives to hackneyed PowerPoint presentations
• Cloud-based design and engagement platforms
• Hands-on training activities that could pep up training deliveries

After the webinar, participants should be able to:

• Choose digital tools suitable for their needs
• Increase their outreach
• Establish informal communication channels with their audience
• Go green by switching to paperless training sessions when delivering in person

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This webinar aims at helping the learning and development community better understand the challenges that female entrepreneurs face when applying for funding and the role training professionals can play to facilitate women’s access to finance.

By the end of this webinar, participants will:

• Have a better understanding of some of the constraints that female entrepreneurs face when running their businesses, particularly as it relates to funding.
• Come up with strategies to help corporates, especially financial institutions, bridge gaps preventing female entrepreneurs from accessing funds.

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In this webinar, Caroline Mwazi, IFC master trainer and IFC-LPI assessor talks about the X-factor in training to help training professionals: 

• Consistently bring their best self into training
• Create memorable learning experiences for their learners
• Become sought-after trainers in the L&D market

By the end of the webinar, participants were able to: 

•  Outline traits of exceptional trainers
•  Define emotional intelligence and start using it in their training deliveries
•  Create an action plan to become a better trainer

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Today's business environment is characterized by rapidly changing organizational structures and technological evolution. Yet, many training companies do not have established strategies to effectively maneuver and adapt to these changes and challenges. The deliberate implementation of knowledge management (KM) practices could contribute enormously to the growth of training SMEs, improving their performance and efficiency. 

This webinar builds on the previous webinar “How to Become More Competitive and High-Performing through Effective Knowledge Management Practices”  and aims to equip consultants, managers, executives, and training professionals with knowledge on how to effectively establish and sustain good knowledge management practices. By the end of the webinar, participants will: 

• Receive practical guidelines to work through the KM implementation process. 
• Develop and implement strategies to effectively integrate KM into their business practices. 
• Identify knowledge needs and define the goals and objectives of a knowledge management strategy. 

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Many people tend to forget, misplace, or misremember things. However, it shouldn’t be this way. By training your brain you can improve your memory and change your life – you can become a more effective trainer, powerful speaker, or trusted professional. You can finally achieve your business and life goals and better connect with your family, clients, and self. As a training professional, you will also have the power to change the lives of those you teach by helping them improve their recall and apply what they learn in class.

By the end of this webinar, you will:

• Know your learnability index – a mighty secret to be used in everything you do, so you don't waste time, money, and energy
• Understand the foundations of memory, why we forget things and how we can overcome it
• Clear your mind to help you remember easily and become more creative and
• Learn other techniques to enhance your memory.

You will leave this webinar with lots of practical takeaways that you can implement immediately.

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The current linear economy model of take-make-dispose is very unsustainable and has led to serious global issues, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste, thus making a transition to a circular economy an imperative for every economic actor.

According to Accenture, the circular economy — an economic system designed to ensure resource optimization, maximize waste prevention, and minimize social and environmental costs — could generate $4.5 trillion in additional economic output by 2030. This is a massive opportunity. Training professionals can leverage this opportunity and thus contribute to the achievement of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals by playing a major role in supporting global businesses' transition to a circular economy through capacity building, facilitation of information exchange, and by directly adopting a circular business model in their practices. Some examples of circular business models include resource sharing, leasing, product-service systems, reusing, refurbishing, co-ownership, remanufacturing, and recycling.

During this webinar, IFC Master Trainer Jonathan Ikeolumba highlighted the business case for a transition to a circular economy, discussed the types of circular business models, and shared ideas of how training professionals and organizations can adopt circular models and fully exploit new opportunities, while making our planet a healthier place to live in — for us and future generations.

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Many MSMEs and corporate leaders struggle with high-stress levels. And the pressure after the pandemic is only making things worse: repair businesses, reignite morale, sustain growth, hire or retrain the workforce, and adjust to the new work modality. The list goes on. So, what can we do? As learning and development professionals, we can play a major role in helping businesses get back on a strong footing. We can help rebuild, retrain, and restrategize.

But what if training professionals themselves need help? How can they rebound from changing priorities, shrinking budgets, or even personal post-pandemic turmoil; not to mention the challenges of keeping the work-life balance and surviving the roller-coaster of too much work vs. periods of no training projects at all?

During the webinar, Suhail Jouaneh, IFC master trainer:

• Defined the terms “emotional well-being”, “emotional health”, and “mental health”. 
• Shared his personal story.
• Explained the four areas of action that can help participants build strong emotional well-being and work-life balance.

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Many learners in rural and peri-urban areas have limited or no access to a formal learning environment. Since the emergence of online learning, access has improved but mainly for those with smartphones and Internet access. A recent World Economic Forum report released on March 16, 2022, shows that only one in every ten individuals has access to meaningful connectivity, especially in low-income countries. COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of learning globally. However, those without smart devices and access to meaningful Internet are being left behind.

What effort are we as learning and development professionals making to close this gap using innovative curriculum design and delivery methodology? How are we ensuring that pedagogy takes into account that many learners are only able to speak and learn in their local language?

During the webinar, Dr. Peter Bamkole, IFC master trainer:

• Shared lessons learned by EDC Pan-Atlantic University in the past two years.
• Provided guidance on how you as a learning and development professional can make use of these lessons to improve access to those who may unintentionally be excluded.

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Training professionals are selling their expertise every day; however, the market they operate in is very competitive. If there is a demand for capacity-building services, someone will fulfill it — either you or your competitor. How can you better promote your services, stand out in the marketplace, and start winning more contracts? One way to accomplish this is by creating an effective advertising campaign.

The effectiveness of an advertising campaign is typically measured in terms of:

• The impression it generates.
• The response to the campaign by the target group.
• The point of differentiation it creates as compared to other competitive offerings.

During this webinar, Haadiah Yasir, lecturer of advertising at Lahore School of Economics, helped trainers set their advertising objectives and get the desired response from their target groups.

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Whether you are an in-house training manager or a freelance professional hired to lead talent development efforts for a client organization, now is the time to develop the learning and development strategy (L&D strategy) for 2023. Learn how to design and develop the L&D strategy that speaks to the company's business priorities and strategic objectives and guarantees growth for the employees as well as the business itself. 

During this webinar, Sandra Ihenacho, a certified transformational coach, certified professional group and team coach, and Kirkpatrick certified professional, explained what an L&D strategy is and why it is important, described desired characteristics of a good L&D design, and listed essential steps for a well-built L&D strategy.

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Most training professionals do not have a formal growth strategy for their business or are not able to effectively implement it, which limits the business’s success.

During the webinar ‘Building Blocks for your Training Business’, Caroline Nyamwaya Mwazi, strategy consultant and IFC-certified master trainer, discussed the essentials for building a thriving training business, while introducing training professionals to five building blocks of success.
 

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Whether you are delivering a course or a presentation, you want to do it in the most impactful way to motivate the audience to take action, change their behavior, or start implementing new practices. And the key to success is to ensure the audience is engaged from the start. How can you get and sustain participants' attention and interest, create an atmosphere of trust, and spark learners' curiosity? Start with a powerful, motivational introduction.

During the webinar, Bibiana Mbuh Taku discussed:

• Motivational introductions and review examples of strong and weak introductions.
• Components of motivational introductions.
• “What is in for me” (WIIFM) approach.
• Benefits of motivational introduction.

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